Fabulous Females

That's what this site is for: a place to gather all of the ideas and observations of real women living out the drama of single life in a world of "hooking up" and "putting out." If you'd like to become a poster, just give us your email address in a comment so we can invite you in! This is a non-discriminatory place to air out your feelings, so please be constructive! We also welcome men to post insight, comments, and advice on today's culture between males and females.

Monday, May 26, 2008

safe spaces

As with many other things, I have an on-again, off-again, love-hate relationship with blogging. On the one hand, I believe it opens communication across geographic boundaries and invites conversation on many pressing topics that might otherwise go undiscussed. Recently, for instance, I came across an article by a woman who shared a similar experience growing up as I had. Just by virtue of reading it, I felt an amazing, unprecedented catharsis knowing that I was not "the only one." I doubt this would have ever happened without the written, electronic word. Even on this blog there is comfort in knowing that the challenges of being twenty-something, Christian, and female today span more than individual lives, as does the encouragement we share as we come to terms with it or find that special someone.

At the same time, as we are all aware, publishing these experiences -- however anonymously or obliquely -- comes at the expense of our privacy. For this reason, I never use my legal name in my blogs (nor anyone else's), nor links between them, or post my direct contact information (if I can help it). Yet, in one way or another, many of the people -- exes, my father (egad!), et al included -- I come to write about have come across information that I never intended them to. It is a sobering thought, and one I must confess that makes me bothered as though a real privacy violation had occurred. After all, it is one thing to read someone's blog for fun, out of common interest, or so on. It is quite another to *search* for someone's information for the explicit purpose of finding out personal information about them that they chose not to reveal to you in person.

So once again, I am at odds regarding the consequences of blogging. It is psychologically relieving to write and read about daily life, dreams, and doubts in a community outside of one's immediate environment. Yet, as I am realizing all too often, it could often come back to haunt you.

For instance, I have not qualms about saying that I am moving on, am genuinely happy, thank you very much, with a neighbor (no, not boyfriend) that I have gone out with a couple of times, and have nothing to regret other than when this tertiary communicator, the blog, is used as a stand-in or short-cut to get to know the folks right in front of us. For my own sake, this time I'll keep shut about the rest ... at least for now.

What do you think? As this and/or your personal blog grows in popularity, and our relational issues deepen, how much thought are you putting into who or what you write about, based on whom you think is or not reading it. Where do you draw the line, and is there such a think as a violation of privacy in a presumably public space? How safe is the Internet, after all, to talk about the things that matter most?

Just a thought! I hope this doesn't keep the rest of you from sharing the rest of your unfolding stories. I've enjoyed reading and pondering them all..... l.d.

4 Comments:

  • At 12:38 PM, May 27, 2008, Blogger la persona said…

    oh, and as with most of my other posts, I'll probably take this one down as well so as not to leave indelible tracks online either. It's my way of having my cake without being eaten by it!

     
  • At 7:19 AM, May 28, 2008, Blogger The Prufroquette said…

    In such a globally electronic world, it's difficult to remain at all anonymous at any time.

    I'm a cop's daughter, and inherently suspicious of everyone and everything. It's how I was raised. Folks in my small town marvel at the fact that I lock my car doors every time I close them, whether I am getting into or leaving the vehicle, and that I lock my house doors every time I close them, whether I am entering or leaving the home.

    About the net, however, I tend not to worry TOO much. I do little things to protect myself -- I have no last name on blogger; I don't reveal the name of the town where I live anywhere online.

    And to protect the people who might make cameo appearances in my blog narratives, I make sure it's stuff that anyone could know without feeling ashamed. I don't write in-depth reviews of my traumatizing experiences that directly result from the actions of another human being; I never use full names if I'm writing about someone in a negative light -- instead I resort to nicknames and epithets. Even my friends usually have nicknames and epithets. My boss and his wife, for example -- I've never written their actual names. They're always "Boss-Man" and "Boss-Lady."

    The great thing about my latest dating adventures is that the guys I've been dating don't even have computers; they're mechanical, hands-on-type workers, and don't like the internet, so the chances of them stumbling across my blogs and recognizing themselves are slim.

    But in the end, I'm a writer at heart, and I would keep talking into the ether even if no one were reading my words. There's a way to write without it being too personal -- even when you're discussing deeply affecting topics. The things that really hurt me, the things that would truly violate my own privacy or someone else's, I never put into print.

    On the whole, I like blogging, and the solidarity of keeping in touch and sharing common experiences with others. But I'm wondering how long it's going to last -- the "world wide web" of our generation, the global mentality we've grown up with, is starting to conflict with the psychological tendencies of people our age to settle into our own lives and focus on the happenings of our immediate environment. There's a reason, I think, why high schools and colleges plan decadal class reunions -- people don't keep in touch once they move away and start their own lives, however close they may have been when they ran with the pack mentality of their younger years.

    Not to be cynical. I'm just curious to see how all of that will pan out. I think the long stretches of silence on this blog are just an example of what's starting to happen to people our age all over the place.

     
  • At 8:18 AM, August 04, 2008, Blogger Nic said…

    This is only tangentally related - but I've been reading/commenting on this blog for a while and am wondering if I could also become a poster?

    (stardestiny@bigfoot.com)

     
  • At 2:29 PM, August 06, 2008, Blogger The Prufroquette said…

    You're not already?! Good grief! Come on board!

     

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